7/16/20
Jesus in the Quran
As was mentioned earlier in essay #7, the angels visited Mary and gave her the good tidings:
“O Mary! God sends you the good tidings of a Word of His,
Named the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary,
Distinguished in this world and in the hereafter.
And one of the nearest to God.
And will speak to people (both) in infancy and maturity
And will be one of the righteous.
She (Mary) said, ‘My Lord, how can I have a child when no man has touched me’?
The (angel) said: So, God creates what He wills,
To have anything done, He only says to it ‘Be’ and it is.
And He will teach him the scripture, wisdom, the Torah and the Gospel.
And (sends) him as a messenger to the children of Israel:
‘I have come to you with a sign from your Lord:
I make for you, out of clay, the figure of a bird
Then I breathe into it,
And it will become a bird by God’s leave.
And I will heal the blind and the lepers
And I will revive the dead by God’s leave.
And I can even tell you about you consume and what you have set aside to save.
All that as a sign for you if you are believers.
And I will verify what lies before me of the Torah,
And to make lawful for you some of what was forbidden to you
I came to you with a sign from your Lord,
So, fear God and obey me.
It is God who is my Lord and your Lord so worship Him
For that is the straight path.
Quran, 3:45–51
It is not difficult for the followers of the old and New testament to see that the Quran goes muc further than either in giving more attributes to Jesus. There is not a single mention in the old testament of Jesus at all and while it predicts of the coming of a messiah, it does not recognize Jesus as being the messiah. However, the Quran does in the verses above.
As for the new testament, the story of healing the son of the widow in Nain is mentioned only in Luke, 7:11–17 and the raising of Lazarus from the dead is told only in John,11:1–44, while the lesser miracles are told in all gospels
It is only in the Quran that list of miracles is more extensive and includes something never mentioned anywhere else and that is the act of creation, by the leave of God, of a bird from a clay model. It also mentions that Jesus spoke from his crib. The story, as told in the Quran, is worth mentioning here
“She carried him (Jesus) home, her people said:
‘O Mary! The sister of Aaron, you have committed an unprecedent sin
neither your father was a bad guy, nor your mother was of ill-repute.
She points to him (in a gesture to ask him)
And they exclaimed: how can we talk to an infant in his cradle?
He (Jesus) said: ‘I am the servant of God,
Who endowed me with scripture and made me a prophet.
He made me blessed whenever I was
And enjoined me to perform prayers and give to charity
So long as I am alive.
And made me devout to my mother and has not made me arrogant, or wretched
Peace be upon me the day I was born,
The day I die,
And the day I shall be raised again.’”
Quran, 19:27–33
Part of the honor bestowed upon Jesus in the Quran, is to deny him the status of being God or son of God as he himself, throughout his life, denied. But that will be the subject of a future essay.